Where does the title come in? Imagine the threatening, magmananimous rumblings of a South Seasatoll overshadowed by a largely-dormant but still-smoking, lava-filled volcano. The natives throw a frantic funereal feast, secure in the supposed knowledge that when the chief's beautiful virgin daughter, bedecked with fluttering leis, is thrown into the smouldering crater in the morning... the anger of the volcano god will again be placated for the time being, eruption staved off, and the village saved. Only we, of course, know that that's totally bunk. Geoff is asking us why we have not yet awoken to the realisation that the demands capitalism asks of us - each of us burning away our youth and gradually made martyrs for lives better lived than lost - are equally bogus. We know better -- so why do we persist in pretending otherwise?

The melody, a slow, mournful dirge, is credited as an arrangement of a traditional Jewish tune; I asked an actual Jew what the name of the tune was and after I hummed it she responded with something that phonetically resembled "shalom aleinu" -- I asked her how it was spelled and she spat back a bewildering series of Hebrew letter-names at me, so unless someone here can clarify further that'll have to be as close to the actual state of affairs as we get here. (Aha! -- update: Oseh Shalom, as in Oseh shalom bi'mrumav / Hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu / Ve al kol yisrael / V'imru amen) For completists, know that the ineffable Carmaig de Forestalso chips in here on violin solos that simply ache.

An official 3.7 meg MP3 of the song can be downloaded for free off Berner's site at http://www.geoffberner.com/volcano.mp3
And I am pleased to note that this is the first EVER lyric-transcription where I have not had to amend the liner-notes text and add relevant semicolons myself. Brother in politics and punctuation, I lay down my own accordion in your eternal service.